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SOLAR VARIABILITY and the earth's climate

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crikey
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SOLAR VARIABILITY and the earth's climate

Post by crikey »

Some new research recently published..2011
UK Research Links Winter Weather With Solar Variability

By Mark Dunphy - Mon Oct 10, 5:04 pm 2011
A study carried out by the UK Met Office, Imperial College London and the University of Oxford has shed new light on a link between decadal solar variability and winter climate in northwestern Europe and parts of America.
Reference
http://www.irishweatheronline.com/news/ ... 41293.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The research shows that low UV output from the sun can contribute to cold winters over parts of the northern hemisphere, such as recently seen in Ireland and the UK. Years of higher UV have the opposite effect.
Image

The research has been published in Nature Geoscience and has been carried out as part of the Met Office’s programme of independent climate research funded by DECC and Defra.

Dr Adam Scaife from the UK’s Met Office, one of the study’s authors, said that while some studies have observed a link between solar variability and winter climate, our research establishes this as more than just coincidence.

He said: “We’ve been able to reproduce a consistent climate pattern, confirm how it works, and quantify it using a computer model based on the laws of physics. This isn’t the sole driver of winter climate over our region, but it is a significant factor and understanding it is important for seasonal to decadal forecasting.”

New data from sensitive satellite equipment shows UV variability over the 11-year solar cycle may be much larger than previously thought and has been key to the research.

By using this information in the Met Office’s climate model, researchers were able to reproduce the effects of solar variability apparent in observed climate records.

In years of low UV activity unusually cold air forms over the tropics in the stratosphere, about 50km up. This is balanced by more easterly flow of air over the mid latitudes – a pattern which then ‘burrows’ its way down to the surface, bringing easterly winds and cold winters to northern Europe.
Image
When solar UV output is higher than usual, the opposite occurs and there are strong westerlies which bring warm air and hence milder winters to Europe.
Low UV output from the sun leads to easterly winds and cold conditions in Europe and the US.

Sarah Ineson, who performed the experiments, said: “What we’re seeing is UV levels affecting the distribution of air masses around the Atlantic basin. This causes a redistribution of heat – so while Europe and the US may be cooler, Canada and the Mediterranean will be warmer, and there is little direct impact on global temperatures.”

While UV levels won’t tell us what the day-to-day weather will do, they could be important in helping us develop improved forecasts for winter conditions for months or even a few years ahead and this is now being investigated.

Joanna Haigh, Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Imperial College London, said: “Compared with the effect of man-made emissions over the last century, solar variations still have a very minor effect on long-term global climate trends, but this study shows they may have a detectable influence on winter climate.
“Even with the most sophisticated atmospheric models, it is very hard to predict weather patterns on seasonal timescales. This study is adding much detail to our current understanding.”
Related article
Sun Heading For A “Rest Period”
By Mark Dunphy - Wed Jun 15, 11:12 am 2011
http://www.irishweatheronline.com/news/ ... 20159.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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crikey
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Re: SOLAR VARIABILITY and the earth's climate

Post by crikey »

schroendingers cat asked

Is the sun activity declining?

if referring to sunspot activity
According to NASA
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"The smoothed aa index reached its minimum (a record low) of 8.4 in September of 2009."
the sun reached a solar minimum with low sunspot activity and is expected or forecast to move toward a solar maximum in the coming years ( increased no of sun spots)
Apparently we are 3 years into cycle 24 of the sun and the forecast is that the new solar maximum is due in late 2013

"We expect a maximum of about 96 in late 2013."

Image

Solar Cycle Prediction
source:
Solar Cycle Prediction
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(Updated 2012/01/03)

"The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 96 in late 2013. We are currently over three years into Cycle 24. The current predicted size still makes this the smallest sunspot cycle in over 80 years."
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Re: SOLAR VARIABILITY and the earth's climate

Post by stratospear »

There's also some interesting research on solar cycle length and Northern Hemisphere temperatures just submitted to the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1954v1.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Basically, longer solar cycle equals lower NH temperatures and vice versa.
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Re: SOLAR VARIABILITY and the earth's climate

Post by crikey »

Hey Stratospear
Thanks for that . A great find! 8-) :P
I am glad l took the time to read.
There are some very profound statements in that research , so l took some of what l saw as the most interesting comments from the link you provided above
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1954v1.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
and have posted them for the record

The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant
temperature decrease in cycle 24


The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant
temperature decrease in cycle 24
Jan-Erik Solheim*
Department of Physics and Technology, University of Tromsø, N-9037, Tromsø, Norway
Kjell Stordahl
Telenor Norway, Fornebu, Norway
Ole Humlum
Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
Department of Geology, University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Svalbard

The correlations found between the average temperature in a solar cycle
and the length of the previous cycle, indicates a possible relation between
solar activity and surface air temperature for the locations and areas inves-
tigated.
Image
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The significant linear relations indicate a connection between solar activ-
ity and temperature variations for the locations and areas investigated.

------------------------------------------------------------------

For the average temperatures of Norway and the 60 European stations,
the solar contribution to the temperature variations in the period investigated
is of the order 40%
---------------------------------------------------------------------

This analysis shows significant dependency between the previous sunspot
cycle length and the temperature. The established model is able to make
significant forecasts with 95% confidence limits for the present sunspot cycle.
There are reasons to believe that these results could be fundamental in further
development of long-term forecasting models for the temperature.


--------------------------------------------------------
They found
a much better correlation between the solar cycle length (SCL) and the tem-
perature anomaly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our forecast indicates an annual average temperature drop of 0.9.C in
the Northern Hemisphere during solar cycle 24. For the measuring stations
south of 75N, the temperature decline is of the order 1.0-1.8.C and may
already have already started. For Svalbard a temperature decline of 3.5.C
is forecasted in solar cycle 24 for the yearly average temperature. An even
higher temperature drop is forecasted in the winter months (Solheim et al.,
2012).
Artic amplification due to feedbacks because of changes in snow and ice
cover has increased the temperature north of 70N a factor 3 more than below
60N (Moritz et al., 2002). An Artic cooling may relate to a global cooling
in the same way, resulting in a smaller global cooling, about 0.3-0.5 .C in
SC24.
Our study has concentrated on an e
ect with lag once solar cycle in order
to make a model for prediction. Since solar forcing on climate is present on
many timescales, we do not claim that our result gives a complete picture of
the Sun’s forcing on our planet’s climate.
--------------------------------------

Image
Figure 1: Length of solar cycles (inverted) 1700-2009.The last point refers to SC23 which
is 12.2 years long. The gradual decrease in solar cycle length 1850-2000 is indicated with
a straight line.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This suggests that there may exist a physical mechanism linking
solar activity to climate variations.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assuming a relation between the sunspot number and global tempera-
ture, the secular periodic change of SCL may then correlate with the global
temperature, and as long as we are on the ascending (or descending) branches
of the 188 yr period, we may predict a warmer (or cooler) climate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A
statistical study of 69 tree rings sets, covering more than 594 years, and SCL
demonstrated that wider tree-rings (better growth conditions) were associ-
ated with shorter sunspot cycles (Zhou and Butler, 1998).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In addition to the relation between solar cycle length and the amplitude
of the next Rmax, it is reasonable to expect a time lag for the locations
investigated, since heat from the Sun, amplified by various mechanisms, is
stored in the ocean mainly near the Equator, and transported into the North
Atlantic by the Gulf Stream to the coasts of Northern Europe. An example
of time lags along the Norwegian coast is an advective delay between the
Faroe-Shetland Channel and the Barents Sea of about 2 years determined
from sea temperature measurements (Yndestad et al., 2008).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mehl et al. (2009) have shown that two
mechanisms: the top-down stratospheric response of ozone to fluctuations of
shortwave solar forcing and the bottom-up coupled ocean-atmospheric sur-
face response, acting together, can amplify a solar cyclical pulse with a factor
4 or more.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
he predicted cooling during the coming Solar cycle (SC) 24 for certain
locations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Image
Figure 7: Temperature anomaly for 60 stations on land in Europe, mostly located outside
large cities.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The temperature measured at Svalbard has already shown sign of
decline as predicted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
sea between the Labrador island and West Greenland has shown a marked
warm anomaly for most of 2010. This has resulted in a temperature increase
the last two years (figure 18), opposite the prediction in table 1.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Image

Figure 18: Nuuk, Greenland, average yearly temperatures,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Image
Figure 19: HadCRUT3N, average yearly temperature anomalies,
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the Norwegian and Europe60 average tem-
peratures have already started to decline towards the predicted SC24 values,
while the HadCRUT3N temperature anomaly has shown no such decline yet

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For HadCRUT3N the predicted temperature drop is 0.9.C.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Arctic cooling as predicted here may be converted into
a global cooling, which is a factor 2-3 lower due to the Artic amplification of
temperature dierences (Moritz et al., 2002).
Tnis means a global cooling of the order 0.3-0.5.C.
We may also expect a more direct cooling near Equator
due to the response to reduced TSI with the weaker solar cycles in the near
future (Perry, 2007; Mehl et al., 2009; Richards et al., 2009).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The large increase in SCL from SC22 to SC23 signals a
temperature drop, which may not come as fast as predicted because of the
thermal inertia of the oceans. The warming has taken place over 150 years -
cooling of the same order may require some decades to be realized.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The temperatures in the North Atlantic and on adjacent land areas are
controlled by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which has in
the instrumental period from 1856 exhibited a 65-80 yr cycle (0.4.C range),
with warm phases at roughly 1860-1880 and 1930-1960 and cool phases dur-
ing 1905-1925 and 1970-1990 (Kerr, 2000; Gray et al., 2004). This period
is proposed related to a 74 yr period, which is a sub harmonic of the 18.6
yrs lunar-nodal-tide (Yndestad et al., 2008).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This points to ocean currents as
the mechanism of transport of the heat generated at southern locations by
solar radiation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

de Jager & Duhau (2011) concludes that the solar activity is presently
going through a brief transition period (2000-2014), which will be followed
by a Grand Minimum of the Maunder type, most probably starting in the
twenties of the present century. Another prediction, based on reduced solar
irradiance due to reduced solar radius, is a series of lower solar activity cycles
leading to a Maunder like minimum starting around 2040 (Abdussamatov,
2007).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in the period 1856-1970, the Sun cannot have contributed
to more than 30% of the global temperature increase taken place since then,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From correlation studies of 7 (not all global) temperature series for the
period 1610-1970 de Jager et al. (2010) found a solar contribution of 41%
to the secular temperature increase. Our results are somewhat higher for
Northern Hemisphere locations in the period 1850-2008.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From correlation studies of 7 (not all global) temperature series for the
period 1610-1970 de Jager et al. (2010) found a solar contribution of 41%
to the secular temperature increase. Our results are somewhat higher for
Northern Hemisphere locations in the period 1850-2008.
...............................................
...............We may therefore suggest that SCL in some way
is related to astronomical forcing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Satellite observations by the Spectral Imager Monitor (SIM) indicate
that variations in solar ultraviolet radiation may be larger than previously
thought, and in particular, much lower during the recent long solar minimum.
Based on these observations Ineson et al. (2011) have driven an ocean-climate
model with UV irradiance. They demonstrate the existence of a solar climate
signal that a
ects the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and produced the
three last cold winters in Northern Europe and in the United States.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Significant linear relations are found between the average air temperature
in a solar cycle and the length of the previous solar cycle (PSCL) for 12 out
of 13 meteorological stations in Norway and in the North Atlantic.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the average temperatures of Norway and the 60 European stations,
the solar contribution to the temperature variations in the period investigated
is of the order 40%. An even higher contribution (63-72%) is found for
stations at Faroe Islands, Iceland and Svalbard. This is higher than the 7%
attributed to the Sun for the global temperature rise in AR4 (IPCC, 2007).
About 50% of the HadCRUT3N temperature variations since 1850 may be
attributed solar activity. However, this conclusion is more uncertain because
of the strong autocorrelations found in the residuals.
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Re: SOLAR VARIABILITY and the earth's climate

Post by Anthony Violi »

This is nothing new. As Svenmaark said last month, forget about Global Warming, its solar cycle 25 thats the problem.

Unfortunately, the western world is totally corrupt, and probably know its coming, but are in denial as they have invested too much money in the green scheme scam. A global depression will come first, forcing a world war, followed by something akin to an ice age by 2030-2040.

Here is the projection, noting that the Dalton minimum saw 70 years of the Thames freezing over and agricultural areas shifting north and South 500 kms.

Image

As you can see, the projection is for much colder than the maunder minimum. Saw somewhere last week that solar cycle 25 "might not happen at all" which would kill off a fair swathe of the population

The MEt Office think it will only drop fractionally due to the Co2 over riding the solar influence. I say good luck with that, and stock up on food and snow gear.
http://www.therealworldweatherforum.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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